About Me

I'm a gay, progressive, political blogger, born & bred in New York. I started blogging because I was really pissed off at what 8 years of Bush/Cheney did to my country. This is not the America I was brought up to believe in. It's going to take a generation to repair their damage. My intent with this blog is to aggregate news from a progressive viewpoint; not to defend my beliefs or debate conservathugs on the validity of their warped worldview. I don't mind posting contrary viewpoints, as long as they don't include conspiracy theories, flat out lies, GOP talking points or racist, xenophobic & homophobic attacks. Unfortunately, I haven't had many right-leaning visitors who have left comments that fit the bill. Oh, and I like to curse. (Email link available in my profile)

3.28.2010

CNN's hiring of racist, right-wing, homophobe, and all around teabagging zealot, Erick Erickson, was just too much for Guest Blogger @Shoq (and most progressives) to bare. If you don't understand how detrimental CNN's decision was, just read this post by @Shoq. And then do something. Follow @DumpCNN ~ @shoq ~ @stopbeck ~ @Oilwellian on Twitter, or DumpCNN on Facebook. You can also let CNN Political Director @SamFeistCNN & President of CNN @JonKleinCNN know how you feel about their decision to welcome this extremist into the CNN family.

In March, CNN made stunning announcement that Erick Erickson, editor of the ultra-right Tea Party screed Redstate.com (owned by Eagle Publishing, owner of malodorous HumanEvents.com) would be a regular panelist on the new "John King's USA" program. We get the media we deserve, and I was loath to roll over for one more indignity. I got a little worked up about it.

So We Made A Video About CNN's Latest Farce

My video partner, Oilwellian and I felt this reckless erosion of CNN's responsibility was so egregious that it needed a simple polemical response that called attention to it.

Enough is Enough — How You Can Help

Educate Time-Warner Stockholders

Show them just how fast and loose CNN executives, Jon Klein and Sam Feist are being, You can be sure their stockholders have no idea what kind of unhinged propaganda they are presenting to the American people in their pursuit of a few of Fox New's ratings points.

PLEASE RETWEET this post (see below), so a viral pressure might goose @CNN to stop this Fox-chasing nonsense and try being a real news network again. It took them two years to admit the Lou Dobbs mistake, so I don't have a lot of hope that they'll can this stupid Erickson idea too soon. But at least this exposure can make it painful for them. We have only 24 hours left to make video go viral (and get special notices on YouTube). Your RTs and emails would help a lot.

IT'S IMPORTANT: Even though John King USA's show is pretty boring (King was never mister magnetic), and the nepotism shown by using his wife Dana Bash as the show's (Republican friendly) Congressional reporter makes the show a laughing stock, that doesn't mean this farce should stand, unassailed until the inevitable cancellation. The experience may make CNN just a bit more sensitive to the fact that the Tea Party ain't the only Americans fired up, lately.

Some of us are just disgusted with the corporate wrecking ball that American capitalism—and our media—have become. It's time we just said no, and meant it.

The right has screwed up this nation too thoroughly for us to just acquiesce to CNN giving a platform to the latest overrated stooge of concorporate hegemons. As the past few years have proved, they own or control most of this nation where it counts, and even when progressives score gains (as we just did with Health Care Reform), there is still a huge question mark hovering over the future of the United States. A recovering economy will not mask the near-kleptocratic nature of what our modern predatory-capitalist-system-run- amok has become.

Through one of many proxies like Redstate, the corporate and conservative elites use massive private funding networks to distribute professionally crafted propaganda masking as "grass roots" efforts.

Their work is designed to prey on the emotions and fears of an almost fundamentalist fervor amongst the ignorant Teahadist soldiers they are whipping up across the nation. The primary goal is to convince these gullible—or just rich, mean, racist, or stupid—people, that the administration that inherited the burden of fixing the economic malaise they created, are actually the people who caused them in the first place. And when you have a 24 hour news channel (Fox News) devoted to such efforts, it's really not all that hard to sell such foolishness to the proles.

This professionally-crafted and marketed lying has gone on far too long—and it's wrecking this nation. And yet, as I type this, the US Chamber of Commerce is gearing up to spend more millions of dollars in local elections. Precisely the kind of spending secured with the kind of right-wing propaganda that HumanEvents, Redstate, and Erick Erickson represent (often literally).

Below, I have created one of my "capsules" to provide some background on CNN's latest gift to the nation, and to the right wing groups and strategies that have crippled it: Erick Erickson.

Overview of Erick Erickson

There is not much about this creep to like. Let's just say he's a man of average means, who now has way above average influence in a Republican party that respects only results, regardless of outcomes. A full picture of him will emerge from the materials, herein.

CNN's hiring of racist, right-wing, homophobe, and all around teabagging zealot, Erick Erickson, was just too much for Guest Blogger @Shoq (and most progressives) to bare. If you don't understand how detrimental CNN's decision was, just read this post by @Shoq. And then do something. Follow @DumpCNN ~ @shoq ~ @stopbeck ~ @Oilwellian on Twitter, or DumpCNN on Facebook. You can also let CNN Political Director @SamFeistCNN & President of CNN @JonKleinCNN know how you feel about their decision to welcome this extremist into the CNN family.

In March, CNN made stunning announcement that Erick Erickson, editor of the ultra-right Tea Party screed Redstate.com (owned by Eagle Publishing, owner of malodorous HumanEvents.com) would be a regular panelist on the new "John King's USA" program. We get the media we deserve, and I was loath to roll over for one more indignity. I got a little worked up about it.

So We Made A Video About CNN's Latest Farce

My video partner, Oilwellian and I felt this reckless erosion of CNN's responsibility was so egregious that it needed a simple polemical response that called attention to it.

Enough is Enough — How You Can Help

Educate Time-Warner Stockholders

Show them just how fast and loose CNN executives, Jon Klein and Sam Feist are being, You can be sure their stockholders have no idea what kind of unhinged propaganda they are presenting to the American people in their pursuit of a few of Fox New's ratings points.

PLEASE RETWEET this post (see below), so a viral pressure might goose @CNN to stop this Fox-chasing nonsense and try being a real news network again. It took them two years to admit the Lou Dobbs mistake, so I don't have a lot of hope that they'll can this stupid Erickson idea too soon. But at least this exposure can make it painful for them. We have only 24 hours left to make video go viral (and get special notices on YouTube). Your RTs and emails would help a lot.

IT'S IMPORTANT: Even though John King USA's show is pretty boring (King was never mister magnetic), and the nepotism shown by using his wife Dana Bash as the show's (Republican friendly) Congressional reporter makes the show a laughing stock, that doesn't mean this farce should stand, unassailed until the inevitable cancellation. The experience may make CNN just a bit more sensitive to the fact that the Tea Party ain't the only Americans fired up, lately.

Some of us are just disgusted with the corporate wrecking ball that American capitalism—and our media—have become. It's time we just said no, and meant it.

The right has screwed up this nation too thoroughly for us to just acquiesce to CNN giving a platform to the latest overrated stooge of concorporate hegemons. As the past few years have proved, they own or control most of this nation where it counts, and even when progressives score gains (as we just did with Health Care Reform), there is still a huge question mark hovering over the future of the United States. A recovering economy will not mask the near-kleptocratic nature of what our modern predatory-capitalist-system-run- amok has become.

Through one of many proxies like Redstate, the corporate and conservative elites use massive private funding networks to distribute professionally crafted propaganda masking as "grass roots" efforts.

Their work is designed to prey on the emotions and fears of an almost fundamentalist fervor amongst the ignorant Teahadist soldiers they are whipping up across the nation. The primary goal is to convince these gullible—or just rich, mean, racist, or stupid—people, that the administration that inherited the burden of fixing the economic malaise they created, are actually the people who caused them in the first place. And when you have a 24 hour news channel (Fox News) devoted to such efforts, it's really not all that hard to sell such foolishness to the proles.

This professionally-crafted and marketed lying has gone on far too long—and it's wrecking this nation. And yet, as I type this, the US Chamber of Commerce is gearing up to spend more millions of dollars in local elections. Precisely the kind of spending secured with the kind of right-wing propaganda that HumanEvents, Redstate, and Erick Erickson represent (often literally).

Below, I have created one of my "capsules" to provide some background on CNN's latest gift to the nation, and to the right wing groups and strategies that have crippled it: Erick Erickson.

Overview of Erick Erickson

There is not much about this creep to like. Let's just say he's a man of average means, who now has way above average influence in a Republican party that respects only results, regardless of outcomes. A full picture of him will emerge from the materials, herein.